Thread: Cutting Curved Shapes in Steel

Check out the Google adds under your post for a start. A full sheet of 25mm mild steel will make your eyes water. Try engineering/welding companies for offcuts. Or even scrap metal merchants. Google and yellow pages are your best friends.

Edit: Google adds were for laser and water jet cutting services, now financial advice. Might be an omen

Originally Posted by grunto

need to cut out some curved shapes in reasonable thick (25 mm) mild steel. The finished pieces will be about 200mm x 200mm although there are about 5 different shapes, none of which are the same. I was thinking it would be worth trying to get these cut by machine rather than trying to cut them by hand. The curves are reasonably tight in places (sey a radius of 20mm).

Small internal radii are dead easy to do with a big drill press.

Before you go any further, What is it you trying to do/achieve here. 25 mm thick steel is the sort of stuff used for moving railway cars or heavy haulage jinkers!

Originally Posted by grunto

need to cut out some curved shapes in reasonable thick (25 mm) mild steel. The finished pieces will be about 200mm x 200mm although there are about 5 different shapes, none of which are the same. I was thinking it would be worth trying to get these cut by machine rather than trying to cut them by hand. The curves are reasonably tight in places (sey a radius of 20mm). My questions are:

Is water jet / laser an option? Is there somewhere that has this equipment and could do the cutting if I gave them a DXF file (the shapes are drawn in AutoCAD)?

Probably not laser as they cost will be high, water jet well maybe. Perhaps look at a somebody who has a cnc Oxy/Acet set up as they operate from drawings. How accurate do you want it anyway as this effect the price more than anything

Originally Posted by grunto

Where could I source some "scrap" steel of approximately these dimensions (I priced "new" steel and I am steel recovering from the shock).

The workshop would be able to supply the steel as well.

bob raises a valid question- what are you trying to do, that is heavy material presumably for a heavy job?

depending on how intricate the shapes are and what tolerance is required, a good operator could possibly freehand cut with oxy or plasma.
cleaning up the cut could be difficult if the shapes are odd with tight intrenal radius.

general engineering shops can do this sort of thing, or even some of the larger steel merchants might be able to.
trick is finding one who will do low volume work, some will but depends how long you want to wait for it. as for finding somebody who will do low volume work on a cnc laser/water jet machine that would be primarily in the shop for production runs, well the wait for the parts might be a bit longer.
as has been said, the yellow pages are going to be your best friend, take an hour out of the day and ring around a few

The water jet guy we use has cut 200mm discs from 210mm discs we have provided him before, and can work of line drawings. I say go find a local waterjet and talk to them. BTW our waterjet guy isn't a 'waterjet' company so to speak, they just have one and do odd jobs for us. Oh yeah, ask to see examples of work too. We got some cutting done in Newcastle and the holes weren't round and had crazy angles out the back of the work. We have had 25mm stainless cut before too.

Some water jet/lazer shops will supply the steel for you